Just How Important Is The Lens In Digital?

With Photoshop and other "enhancement" options it seems to me that lens quality is less important (not unimportant, just LESS important) than with film where you, essentially, get one chance for the perfect image. Comments?

I don't think that PS can enhance a photo that's imperfect due to the lens into perfection and most corrections possible now with digital were also possible with a wet darkroom.

OTOH, since I don't have any experience using good glass and generally feel that how good a photo is depends more on other factors than the lens, I'm probably not the one to answer this.

The lens is extremely important. Take your camera to a photography shop, put on a kit lens take a couple of images of the same thing, then put on a prosumer lens (in between kit and pro lens), take a couple of images of the same thing, then put on a pro lens and do the same. Use the same setting for all the lenses, that is f/stop and shutter speed and then go look at the images on your computer. If you can't see the difference then stick with kit lenses. I think you will see using good glass makes a huge difference.

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Originally Posted by carney2

With Photoshop and other "enhancement" options it seems to me that lens quality is less important (not unimportant, just LESS important) than with film where you, essentially, get one chance for the perfect image. Comments?

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I think that's a GREAT question!!!!!!

I am blown away by some of the creative things I see folks do in Photoshop. But I don't consider most of it Photography. It's graphic art. I have loved photography my entire life. All types and styles. But until the last few years, I thought photography was mainly about capturing an image. Post processing was a skill. A bonus skill. Now it's like that has all been reversed. Forget the lens issue, who even needs a camera????? Everything can be done in photoshop!

I have owned digital cameras, and Photoshop, since they were introduced. And I currently own a 20D and PSCS. For anything more than the absolute basics, I hate Photoshop. I've tried to get into it, but I just cant. (I like the camera, but I shoot in JPEG mode and do minimal post processing.)

Now it has gotten to the point of people creating the "look" of certain types of film in photoshop! Give me a break.

So yeah, why care about the lens? Heck, why care about the camera settings? Why care about the composition? Why care about the lighting?

Unless you love Photography!

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Originally Posted by carney2

With Photoshop and other "enhancement" options it seems to me that lens quality is less important (not unimportant, just LESS important) than with film where you, essentially, get one chance for the perfect image. Comments?

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I've shot enough with film and with digital and manipulated the images enough in Photoshop to realize that a bad image is a bad image. Even with digital, you can't save a very poorly exposed or a very out of focus picture. You can fix the ones that are close, but I don't think the lens is any less important.

Like Lava Lamp, I've noticed that the more you work with digital the more you'll come to realize that garbage in = garbage out. "Saving" an underexposed shot (etc) in Photoshop isn't going to give the same result as a properly exposed shot. And when you start making big prints you'll see the difference between lenses. Sure, there's sharpening in post processing and that will help. In the final result, it will help a really sharp lens look even better. Of course there are other things like corner sharpness and lens flare, where problems are a lot more complicated to fix in PS. Personally, I wouldn't even try with those two...

There is only so much you can do to save a poorly captured image. If you start with the highest quality, the end result will be much better than a poor image that is manipulated to improve it.

Let me restate my position here since some of you have gotten some distance from my intent. I'm not talking about correcting a poor image or turning the proverbial sow's ear into photographic gold. Playing off of Peter from Australia's reply to my question, what I want to know is if you make the best shot possible with a very expensive pro lens and then make that same shot - again, as well as you can - with a consumer or "kit" lens, will your really have that much difference after applying the magic of Photoshop to the consumer/kit image? My guess is that the difference between those two lenses have narrowed significantly and that for a much broader range of photographers than in the film days the extra dollars are probably not worth it.

any phtographer will tell you that your money is best spent investing in lenses. Even sports photographers, with our machine gun shooting (8.5 frames per second) prefer better lenses compared to better bodies. With photoshop you can change some things, but theres quite a few things you can't. You can't sharpen a photo that is blurry (no matter how much you try, you can't fake focus), you can't take an image shot at 80mm and crop it to a photo that looks like it was taken at 300mm without a SERIOUS loss of resolution. You will notice also that a lot of lenses are VERY soft at the end of the their focal lengths, while the higher end lenses are tack sharp at all focal lengths and apertures.

in specific response to your question, yes there will be a noticable difference between the photos of the photographer with $500 invested in lenses and one with $5,000 invested in lenses. The untrained eye may not be able to recognize, but I can tell you for a fact that my basketball photos from this year with a canon 70-200 f/2.8 are MUCH better than those from last year with my sigma 70-300 f/4-5.6, shot in the same conditions in the same gym.

I went out shooting today with a less than pro lens, and a less than pro 2x teleconverter. Many of my shots are in focus, but you can't really tell because of the not so great optics. They just aren't that sharp and nothing I do in PS is going to fix that. I have many shots that I would consider keepers had my optics been better.

I have missed a lot of very nice shots due to the limitations of my camera, but I have missed TONS more do to the limitation of my lenses.

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Originally Posted by carney2

if you make the best shot possible with a very expensive pro lens and then make that same shot - again, as well as you can - with a consumer or "kit" lens, will your really have that much difference after applying the magic of Photoshop to the consumer/kit image?

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That's basically what I was answering (or trying to...). There is a difference, and the bigger the print the bigger the difference. Some consumer lenses are better than others, and the gap has probably closed between them and a top of the line equivalent. The differences will usually be in how sharp they are wide open, having a fast constant aperture vs. a slower variable aperture, and sometimes with sharpness and distortion at the edges of the frame.

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Originally Posted by carney2

With Photoshop and other "enhancement" options it seems to me that lens quality is less important (not unimportant, just LESS important) than with film where you, essentially, get one chance for the perfect image. Comments?

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I've never tried to seriously correct the defaults of a lens in software, but here is my understanding.

The best film lenses (Leica) have moderate definition but which is even right across the field and does not vary too much as you stop the lens down. They have good contrast - it's the combination of definition and contrast that makes the result look sharp. They have no distortion (straight lines don't look like curves) and moderate chromatic aberration (a white spot drawn as a rainbow)

What can you do with a cheaper lens in digital? Well you can't invent detail if it isn't there plus each pixel is made up of data from four tiny sensors spread out horizontally rather than a three big grains spread out vertically as in film. Above all your lens has to resolve detail and if possible have limited chromatic abberation. If your lens is low contrast - you can always put that back in software. And you can also correct distortion in software.

Does that help?



Charles

I am not one of the more knowledgeable people here on the forum but I think the answer is in your question. When you used the phrase "enhancement options" and didn't word it "photo taking options" this is the key.

The lens gives you the better "image taking option" and the software is used for an "enhancement option". To me these are two entirely different things.

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Originally Posted by carney2

With Photoshop and other "enhancement" options it seems to me that lens quality is less important (not unimportant, just LESS important) than with film where you, essentially, get one chance for the perfect image. Comments?

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Originally Posted by Franglais

you can't invent detail if it isn't there

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This pretty much sums it up for me...

I'm not a pro here and I can't do specific comparisons, but I can share my personal experience. I recently opted to sell some of my lenses to purchase the Canon 24-105L IS lens. It was also partly a 65th birthday present. I have a 17-40L lens which has always been my favorite. It was my only "L" lens, and once I saw the quality of the images, I was sold on awesome quality of the "L" lenses.

When the 24-105 appeared on the Canon horizon, and I saw some of the images, I knew I wanted it. The IS helps my slight camera shake problem (old age), the focal length is perfect for me, and I knew it would be at least as good as my 17-40L. I purchased this lens about 2 months ago - and was immediately blown away by the results with very little post processing! The color rendition alone makes it worthy of the "L" label IMHO. I love this lens. It is sharp, great contrast, awesome color.

I am not a photoshop person. I sit at a computer working in my office - and actually dread going back to the computer to post process. With this lens I just make a few adjustments which takes about one minute for most images, and that is it. This lens has made me feel like I did when I got my first SLR! And I can't wait to take it out again!

IMO, there is a huge difference in better lenses.

Liz

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Originally Posted by carney2

With Photoshop and other "enhancement" options it seems to me that lens quality is less important (not unimportant, just LESS important) than with film where you, essentially, get one chance for the perfect image. Comments?

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Another way to look at this is that the camera is a light tight box onto which one attaches a LENS. If the lens isn't so important then photographers would all use disposable cameras. The camera is just a vehicle. If you put bias ply tires on a Ferrari and drive it at 160 mph what happens? The same with a camera. If you put cheap glass on a camera, digital or film, you get substandard photos no matter how critical you are with composition, focusing and exposure. Some pros say the lens is everything and I agree, to a point.

What do you get when you "invest" in a good lens? First, you get ruggedness. A good lens can take a beating and still perform year after year. For example: My old Nikon FTN was purchased about 1970. I purchased all Nikkor lenses. I have easily taken 9000 shots around the world with these lenses. I just got back a couple rolls of film taken with these same lenses. The photos are crisp and clear. Take me out of the equation and you have only the lenses that are almost 40 years old that made the difference between a so-so snapshot and a very decent photograph that has great light and shadow detail and wonderfully concise focus.

Secondly, an inexpensive lens will not hold up to time. They will not give you the photos that knock your sox off. If you look at the photos in any magazine (Nat'l Geo for instance) you will see the clarity that a good lens offers. But, bump and grind the cheap lens a little bit and they will start to leak dust and get fungus as they are not engineered to stand up to this and the lens elements are not good optical quality glass and grinding.

Third, a cheap lens is not well coated. The optical coatings on a good lens will last a long, long time and stand up to a lot of cleanings. A cheap lens will have its coating break down over a short time, resulting in aberrations and flare.

If I had purchased cheap lenses for my Nikon, Mamiya RB or Nikon D70s I would be repurchasing the same cheap lenses over and over as they would not have withstood the rigors of time. As it stands, I will be using the same lenses that I have "invested" in for years to come. If my photos turn out lousy, it's my fault, not the lenses.

Digital Darkrooms fall into the same niche as wet darkrooms. You can only work with what the camera and lens has captured. A good lens will result in a good neg. Thus, Whether Cds or negative, the lens will be, mechanically speaking, the difference.

When a good lens captures detail, it is capturing what actually exists at the moment. When you go back to PS and try to do "enhancements", you're relying on a mathematical formula to "invent" what doesn't exist. So if my photo is soft and I want to sharpen it, all I'm doing is turning neighboring pixels up or down in contrast and sometimes even creating new black pixels where there were previously none. To me, that's not the same thing as capturing the image correctly in the first place.

Photoshop is fun and it makes more photos usable, perhaps, but to use good glass to capture a good photo initially saves time and therefore money.


I'm seriously considering investing in a really good Canon L series lens to improve the quality of my photos. It's frustrating when you have a creative eye and have gotten the composition and lighting right, but in the end the picture is only so-so because the lens was cheap.

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Originally Posted by kellybean

I'm seriously considering investing in a really good Canon L series lens to improve the quality of my photos. It's frustrating when you have a creative eye and have gotten the composition and lighting right, but in the end the picture is only so-so because the lens was cheap.

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Amen to that!!!

I was young and foolish with money and debt. So, when I bought my first Nikon, I bought Nikkor lenses, 3 of them. That was a long time ago and they still are as wonderful. If, by hook or crook, you can by a Canon "L" lens, do it.

When I got my first 1D I didn't have much money for lenses and I soon learned that having that great camera with basically junk lenses didn't work well. It held me over until I got a Sigma 70-200, which outdid all three of the other lenses quality wise but still lacked. Now having the two "L" lenses I know I should have started off with them...I wasted a lot of money on cheap lenses, and got what I paid for. Thats why now when people ask about whether to buy one lens over another due to cost I say get the pro glass. You learn from experiance, and wasting $$ on lenses just isn't worth it.

JS

Amen!!!!!!